Once Upon A Tangled Story
by Phoenix Aurorean
Summary: Tangled, recast with faces from Once Upon A Time. Emma's sheltered life is about to get turned upside-down as the charming thief and pirate Captain Hook finds his way into her tower. The question is, does she want it right-side-up again? Adventure sends these two on a thrilling journey, and they discover that what they've been truly searching for is what they were least expecting.
1. Prologue: The Power of the Sun

**Title: Once Upon A Tangled Story…**

**Pairing: Emma Swan & Killian Jones/Captain Hook [Captain Swan]**

**Rating: T+ (for potential violence, and _other _things…)**

For those of you who frequent the Captain Swan Tumblr tag, this won't be news. I've been inspired by all the wonderful and feelsy **_Tangled _** comparisons, and I've decided to write up my own take…hope you all like it.

~Elizabeth

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**Prologue**

**The Power of the Sun**

_This is the story of how I died. But never fear, this story is not as dark as that sounds, and truth be told, it isn't even mine. This is the story of a girl, an extraordinary lass named Emma. _

_It all starts with the sun. Once upon a time, a single drop of sunlight fell from the heavens, and from this small drop of sun grew a magic, golden flower, with the ability to heal the sick and injured. Centuries passed, and down the hill and across the water, there grew a kingdom, ruled by a beloved King and Queen named David and Snow White. Before long Snow White came to be with child, and she became ill, very ill. Her time was running out, and David, the King, began a search for a miracle, or in this case, a magic golden flower. But the magic flower was being kept hidden by an old woman, Mother Cora, who hoarded the sun's gift and used its healing powers to keep herself young for hundreds of years. All she had to do was sing a special song:_

**_Flower, gleam and glow_**

**_Let your power shine_**

**_Make the clock reverse_**

**_Bring back what once was mine_**

**_What once was mine_**

_And they've called _me _selfish. But in spite of her efforts, the golden flower was found by the King's people, and its magic healed the Queen. A healthy infant girl—a princess—was born, with beautiful golden hair, and I'll spare you the need to guess. Her name was Emma._

_To celebrate her birth, King David and Queen Snow White launched a floating lantern into the sky, and for that one moment, everything was perfect. But then that moment ended. Cora stole into the castle, intending only to take a lock of the little girl's hair, but once it was cut, its power faded and it changed from bright gold to black. So instead she stole the child, and vanished from the eyes and ears of the kingdom. They searched and searched but could not find the princess, for deep within the forest, in a hidden tower, Cora raised the child as her own. She had found her new magic flower, and this time she was determined to keep it hidden._

_But the walls of that tower could not hide everything. Each year on her birthday, the King and Queen released thousands of lanterns into the sky, in the hope that one day, their lost princess would return._


	2. Chapter 1: A Day in the Tower

**A/N: Wow, guys…I'm touched and humbled by all the follows and faves and reviews! Liyah, Swan Captain, Revenessa and Honeydewmelon56, you're all so sweet! I've actually been planning this fic for a long time, and although I usually only publish one chapter a week, I've decided to break my rule: for this fic, I'll be publishing the chapters as soon as I get them written. This is for all you awesome people who've decided you like this little story.**

**And so here it is, Chapter 1.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Once_, _Tangled_, Emma or Killian...that title goes to Adam and Eddy, and to Disney. I accord them their rightful dues for bringing such amazing stories and characters to life.**

**~Elizabeth**

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**Chapter 1**

**A Day in the Tower**

Smiling wide and eyes dancing, Emma threw open the large, wood, double-shutters of the tower's window-door, slightly startling the little chameleon trying to blend in with a flowerpot on the window-ledge.

"Hmm…well, I guess Bae's not hiding out here…"

She walked away from the window, and Bae only had a chance to snicker to himself for a moment before a long tendril of golden hair snaked around his tail and pulled him up out of his hiding place.

"Gotcha!" Emma laughed, dropping into sight from above and inside the window.

Bae squeaked, half in surprise, half in laughter, and changed back into his normal green.

"That's twenty-two for me," declared Emma, whisking her hair away and back into place, freeing Bae. "How about twenty-three out of forty-five?"

Bae scowled.

"Okay, well then what do _you_ wanna do?"

The chameleon brightened and squealed excitedly, pointing with his tail in the direction away from the tower.

"Yeah, I don't think so." Emma picked him up and deposited him on her knee. "I like it in here, and so do you."

Bae stuck his tongue out at her.

Emma laughed. "Oh come on, Bae, it's not so bad in there."

Scooping him up in both hands, she swung herself off the ledge and hurried away toward the broom closet, whole yards of glistening golden hair slipping along behind her.

"**Seven A.M., the usual morning line-up…**"

Emma loved to sing. She sang songs Cora taught her until she grew bored of them, and then made up her own all the time. She often told Bae that she could hear the melodies in her head, and she claimed, "They make themselves up. I just give them a voice."

"**…start on the chores and sweep til the floor's all clean…**"

Whisking broom and pan out of the closet, Emma began sweeping merrily all around the tower's main room, lifting her hair up out of the way and depositing it on banisters, tables and chairs, accidentally coating Bae with a light dusting of dirt as he held the pan for her to sweep into.

"**…polish and wax, do laundry and mop and shine up…**"

This was arguably Emma and Bae's favorite part of cleaning up. After they finished sweeping and dusting and rubbing wax bars on the wood furniture to maintain a healthy shine, Emma would get out the mop and fill the bucket up with water from the small kitchen pump, and they would skate around on the flagged-stone floor of the tower's main room, Emma with brushes strapped to her bare feet, and Bae riding on a bar of soap. It was a lot of fun, kicking up water, getting wet, usually Bae chasing Emma—or rather, paddling after her on his soap bar coracle with his little legs.

"**…sweep again, and by then it's like seven-fifteen, and so I'll read a book or maybe two or three…**"

Emma was like that. It wasn't in her nature to simply being doing nothing—she had to be doing _something_. Cora discovered her love of reading when she was five years old, and she approved of what she called "an aspiration to sophistication", and she often said so. Every month she would come home with a new batch of books for Emma, and although they would often be read completely through within the week, Emma never complained. She just reread them. This month's batch included cooking, geology and botany, of which the last two things Emma would never have otherwise known about, since she never set foot outside the tower.

"**…I'll add a few new paintings to my gallery…**"

The entirety of the walls inside the tower were nearly completely covered in Emma's paintings, images she dreamed up, or depictions of places and things, and creatures Cora described to her. The paints Emma and Cora had made together in the beginning, from plants, berries, crushed seashells, and all manner of other materials. But now Emma made them all herself, with Bae's help. She would never admit it to Cora, because she loved her mother, but she preferred it that way—because she could customize the different colours and shapes to her own liking.

"**…I'll play guitar and knit, and cook and basically wonder, 'When will my life begin'?**"

Emma often declared to Bae that she did her best thinking while she was painting. She could start out thinking about anything from one end of the spectrum to the other, but her little forays into life's mysteries always ended with one question: "When will things be different?" Sometimes the thought that she spent her days in the tower made her sad, and Bae would turn a gentle blue as he curled up on her knee, gazing up at her with round eyes full of sympathy. She would always smile at him, scoop him up, and find something new to do.

Today, there was a bit of unpainted wall, over the fireplace, partially hidden by hanging curtains and a large picture-frame standing on the mantle—that caught her eye. She wasted no time at all, setting the frame aside, pinning up the curtains, and fetching her paintbox.

"**Then after lunch, it's puzzles and darts and baking, papier-mâché, a bit of ballet and chess…**"

Sometimes Emma became so caught up in trying to find new and exciting things to that she tried to do several things at once, like practicing ballet while Bae decided his moves in a chess game. She usually ended up getting herself wrapped up in her own hair, and she claimed that _that _was why Bae always beat her.

"**…pottery and ventriloquy, candle-making, then I'll stretch, maybe sketch, take a climb, sew a dress…**"

Her sewing skills were by now no means raggedy, halting stitches, but they weren't fine embroidery either, yet. She acknowledged long ago that like all the other "stuff" she did during the day, sewing just wasn't her thing. It was more Cora's. But nevertheless, she found it highly amusing to whip up cute little dresses and have Bae model them for her as she pinned them up and made the final adjustments. There were times the dress wouldn't be finished until the next day because she—and then Bae, after one or two minutes of grumpy glaring—would break down laughing at the sight of him in pretty, puffy pink, purple, yellow or blue.

"**…and I'll reread the books if I have time to spare, I'll paint the walls some more, I'm sure there's room somewhere…**"

She was running out of room in the tower for her paintings. She'd even covered the ceilings in her bedroom and Cora's, and she figured before long she'd probably have to get out the super-strong soap that smelled like ashes and lye, and clear away some of those paintings to make room for more. But not today. There was still that space above the fireplace, that she'd already covered in a coat of dark blue like twilight.

"**…and then I'll brush and brush, and brush and brush my hair, stuck in the same place I've always been, and I'll keep wonderin', and wonderin', and wonderin', and wonderin': When will my life begin?**"

Emma had no idea exactly how long her hair had grown, and no way of measuring it conventionally, but it was long enough to lay along the circular walls of the tower's main room at least three or four times, and by the time she'd gotten through brushing it all the way to the ends, oftentimes she was reasonably tired.

"**Tomorrow night, the lights will appear, just like they do on my birthday each year…**

**What is it like, out there where they glow? Now that I'm older, Mother might just let me go…**"

The painting over the fireplace had become the scene of one of her birthday nights, when the mysterious floating lights would dance across the sky. She'd painted hills, and trees, with the glowing golden lights over them, and as a finishing touch she added something else: the figure of a girl sitting atop one of those trees, her golden hair falling all the way to the ground.


End file.
